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Thursday, April 08, 2010

Georgia Writers Hall of Fame Inductees

Each year two living and two deceased writers are chosen by the University of Georgia Libraries and a board of judges for induction into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. The 2011 honorees have just been selected--they will be Melissa Faye Greene and Natasha Trethewey, along with posthumous honorees James Kilgo and Johnny Mercer. The induction ceremony will be held in spring 2011.

James Kilgo published most of his work with UGA Press. He was known for his observant and lyrical nature writing in such works as DEEP ENOUGH FOR IVORYBILLS, INHERITANCE OF HORSES, and COLORS OF AFRICA. Kilgo was a lifelong outdoor sportsman, and critics praised him for his unique insight into hunting that was informed by a deep commitment to environmental conservation. Kilgo was also the author of DAUGHTER OF MY PEOPLE, a novel that won the Townsend Prize and was a finalist for the Lillian Smith Award.

The Press is pleased to be publishing Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey’s first book of nonfiction in September 2010. BEYOND KATRINA is Trethewey’s very personal profile of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and of the people there whose lives were forever changed by hurricane Katrina. Trethewey’s attempt to understand and document the damage to her hometown of Gulfport started as a series of lectures at the University of Virginia that were subsequently published as essays in the Virginia Quarterly Review. For BEYOND KATRINA, Trethewey has expanded this work into a narrative that incorporates personal letters, poems, and photographs, offering a moving meditation on the love she holds for her childhood home.

Also coming out in the fall is JOHNNY MERCER: SOUTHERN SONGWRITER FOR THE WORLD by historian Glenn Eskew, a biography that improves upon earlier popular treatments of the songwriter to produce a sophisticated, insightful, evenhanded examination of one of America’s most popular and successful chart-toppers.